U.S.

Security Drones Dominate San Francisco, Then the City Fights Back

Here it is — your daily dose of science fiction that's uncomfortably close to becoming reality.

The three-minute video above is called Our Drone Future, by designer and musician Alex Cornell. It was filmed on a GoPro attached to a DJI Phantom Drone and flown around San Francisco landmarks; Cornell says he shot it with "a liberal interpretation of FAA regulations."

The genius is in what Cornell layers on top of that footage: a conversation between an intelligent drone known only as 212 and her unseen Homeland Security operator, Ethan. The conversation is as mundane as air traffic control, but hints of menace start to poke through.

We learn that the drone can scan for malicious intent; it can detect stress levels across an entire neighborhood and make a crime prediction a la Minority Report. She casually reveals herself to be weaponized. And in a twist ending, we learn that San Francisco "civilians" are also armed and starting to fight back against the drones.

"Our Drone Future explores the technology, capability, and purpose of drones, as their presence becomes an increasingly pervasive reality in the skies of tomorrow," writes Cornell. He doesn't explicitly identify the drones as belonging to Homeland Security — but the HSA logo is right there on the drone control screen.

Still, this reads less like an anti-big government screed and more like another, longer vision of a terrifying future from a Bay Area filmmaker — THX 1138, the first movie by George Lucas. Both pieces like to play with the warped sound of radio communications; they favor glitches in the screen and intricate heads-up displays.

More importantly, both movie and short suggest that the real menace of the future lies in the mundane. If we ever do end up in this Drone future, it'll be because average Joes like Ethan treat armed aerial surveillance as just another job.

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